RPI Day 5

 Day 5 of RPI has provided more new ideas, and practical tools to help us with our literacy programmes in our classrooms. 

One of the key messages from today’s learning was the importance of having a dedicated space for reading in the timetable.
This needs to include all the aspects of reading, including shared, independent, guided, read to and visiting the school library. Research has shown that when reading has a visible, valued place, it encourages engagement, supports personalised learning, accelerates achievement and empowers students as readers

It reminded me how essential our teaching of reading is , not just for instruction, but for pleasure too. We want our students to love reading. 

We also talked about the power of ubiquitous learning — the idea that learning should be accessible to all children, at any time, from anywhere. With tools like Class Sites offering instructions, and places for learners to learn, create and share, it’s never been easier to connect reading and writing tasks beyond the classroom walls.

A great practical tip: get students to bookmark their learning site on their devices so they can access it independently.

We explored and got introduced to some new apps and sites:

Muzify: An AI tool that turns books into music playlists — a creative way to connect stories with sound.

The Taonga of Storytelling: A site exploring the cultural history and storytelling traditions of Aotearoa New Zealand — perfect for authentic, localised reading encounters.

We also revisited the importance of thoughtfully choosing apps that build comprehension, vocabulary, engagement, and critical thinking, while remembering that not every independent activity needs to happen on a device.

A big part of our planning conversation was about ensuring our programme balances the three essential strands:

Reading: Are we still creating opportunities for recreational reading, library visits, and authentic text encounters?

Writing: Are we providing chances for students to write responses, answer comprehension questions, and use new vocabulary in context? Are we modelling writing ourselves?

Oral Language: Are we supporting extended discussions, setting ground rules for talk, and teaching students to evaluate their discussions?

These three areas support one another, and we need to keep them on the boil throughout the school year.

We acknowledged the challenge of timetabling reading when school expectations and demands vary. Some key points included 

Prioritising reading for pleasure, shared reading, paired reading, and group reading.

Spending more time with students reading below the expected level.

Using tools like Mahi Trackers and learner timetables to track independent work and help students self-manage.

Building in collaboration and choice — students should have opportunities to pick what and how they read and respond.

I particularly liked the anticipation sheet idea — a true/false pre-reading questionnaire to gauge prior knowledge. A great way to spark curiosity and discussion before diving into a text!

One of today’s teaching focus areas was inference — a crucial comprehension skill where students make clever guesses based on clues in the text and what they know.

We broke it down into:

Default Inference: Quick, automatic guesses based on common knowledge.

Reasoned Inference: Thoughtful, evidence-based guesses combining text clues and prior knowledge.

We discussed how to connect reading and writing meaningfully:

Use exemplary texts to model the kind of writing we want students to produce.

Encourage students to write in response to what they read — comprehension answers, reflections, or creative extensions.

One activity I especially enjoyed was creating our own paragraph based on a mentor text. I’m excited to try this in my own classroom.

Day 5 was another good reminder that a thriving reading programme isn’t about isolated lessons — it’s about connected, intentional, and flexible learning

experiences that empower our tamariki as readers, writers and thinkers.

Whether through digital tools, clever timetabling, targeted skill-building, or rich discussions, we have so many ways to foster a love of reading and a habit of critical thinking in our learners.